Wednesday, April 16, 2008

A thorough inspection

As I said a couple of weeks ago, the inspector came yesterday to observe my lesson. This was really important for two reasons: firstly, I needed a good inspection to become a fully qualified teacher in France, and secondly, how well you do in inspections affects how fast you move up the salary scale. She'd chosen my toughest class during the final week of term, but about a third of them were away on a school trip that day. The she got stuck in traffic and arrived late for my lesson, and the kids, bless 'em, stood up when she came into the room!

After the class, the debriefing: this was about half an hour explaining the pay scales (it really does take half an hour to get your head around it, it's that complicated), an hour telling me stuff that I already knew from teacher training plus 15 years of teaching experience in other countries, and five minutes at the end on the actual lesson. She observed two other colleagues that day, and their debriefings were almost identical to mine.

Bottom line? "Your English accent is really good" (really?), "the kids obviously respect you" (because you were there and I'm bribing them) "it was a good lesson, you pass" (yyeeessss!!!) "and I'll raise your teaching grade so you'll go through the salary scale more quickly" (ker-ching!).

Congratulations and thanks for the good laugh. The inspector has planned to observe my toughest class soon too. Bribing them is useless though, they even don't care about watching videos... well unless you have Rap videos with girls in bikinis.

Hi! I've just had a glimpse at your blog and I must say I love it. I am French and teach English on Buenos Aires but taught in france for 13 years so your experience mademe laugh. Particularly as I am about to be inspected...I am thinking of pinning up the pisture of the teacher in bathing suit in the teacher's room as a personal messag for some of mu colleagues but it may be too vicious.I hope i'll have time to get in touch with you as you seem to be much more in touch with the events in france than I am. plus, i enjoy the way you're seeing things. barbara